"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did," So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no non-sense, resourceful, hard working, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her grandfather break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town, riding 500 miles on her pony, all alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane, and, with her husband ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of who is the author's mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle. Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults.